It’s crazy out there, isn’t it? The banter and the name calling, the rhetorical one-upping, and the utter loss of respectful modes of communication from the top down. I feel like I am watching a street fight with wide eyes, every so often hearing my own voice chime in with a “yes, good hit!” and then immediately feeling ashamed for condoning violence at all. It is so much easier to just hide away, to close the browser, turn off the news, and just stop talking about all these things: these leaders and laws and marches and 'who exactly are we keeping away and why?'. But history does not have a strong record of happy endings when too many people look away.

Today, I have three little babies right in front of me. They are so innocent, so blissfully unaware of the rhetoric informing the world they are growing up in. But not for long. They see my despondent demeanor, they catch moments of conversations that don’t yet make sense but plant words and emotions they grapple with. They do not know what they do not know yet, but the puzzle pieces are collecting and putting together a scene of history that is, and will be, theirs. If for no one else but them, I want to lean in to conversations. In fact, I have to. Truthfully, I’m not sure how to put all of these puzzle pieces together either. 

I cannot and will not attempt to explain executive orders. I am far too unfamiliar with government structures and systems to speak to them. If I am honest, I could not even name the members of my local city council, so making generalizations about our government feels unfair. I have many questions and many concerns, and a gut-level reaction that is waving a red flag at what is happening on a policy level, but I do not feel informed enough to speak to them, not yet.

I am also just a mom. I stay home with my kids and teach a little bit and find the fringe hours to put together words but I am not a lawyer, a lobbyist, a government employee, a journalist, economist, historian or anyone else who has the background and context to understand both immigration and law.  

But on the other hand, I am a mom! Full stop. And I think that qualifies me for a whole lot. It makes me both a stakeholder and an influencer, and it also means I get a say in all of this and how I let the conversations 'out there'  take on life in our home. And the problem I see right in front of me, the thing that this mom can do something about today, is fear.

I am also crazy about Jesus, so I start there, with what I know about him and how he felt about people, and about fear.

 And he was pretty clear on both of those things.

Jesus had immense, palpable compassion for people; for his followers who often had such trouble actually understanding him, and for the lost who often could not recognize him. He came with truth and never shied away from it, but his gospel was not one of self-preservation. And he spoke about fear often, never once saying that it was acceptable to live with but always reminding us that there was really only one thing to be afraid of: our own sin.

I do not say this lightly, but I think we sorely misunderstand following Jesus if we believe faith in him is in any way about self-preservation. And I think we thwart efforts for the gospel to move forward when we let fear get too big. Because when we are scared, we get a little too pushy about the boundaries of our self-preservation and we tend to start drawing the lines of our safety further and further away. But logic tells us what happens when we decide our lives need to take up more space: someone else loses theirs.

But this is where I, just a mom, come in. This is when I choose the true gospel of grace by faith, centered on a man who willingly lost his life to save mine; not the American gospel of save yourself, centered on an ideology that our lives are more valuable because they are privileged, or that this life is all that we have.

Grace by faith remembers the sovereignty of God and falls to our knees at the reality of who we are without Jesus. It declares and reminds our hearts every single day that God is either fully in control or not at all, even when we have no possible way of understanding all his reasons. Grace by faith says the way to true life is found in laying ours down, and quite possibly losing it, keeping true fear in a proper perspective. Grace by faith says his glory is far more important than my security. Grace by faith remembers that we have a breath of time to know Jesus in this world and an eternity to finally enjoy him forever.

I do not take safety for granted. I want to feel safe, and I want my kids to feel safe. Of course I do. And I think we are allowed that. We make decisions every day to draw those lines of safety in places that allow our hearts to rest, and those are all a little bit different for each of us. We pick schools, foods, locations, cars, and a hundred other things for our children based on what we believe is safest.

But what I am determined not to do is draw a boundary line of safety so big that I can no longer reach anyone with the gospel. Or a line so big it hurts another mama’s chance at safety for her babies. Or a line so big I get comfortable in a home I was never meant to be all that comfortable in, but rather create a home I am willing to risk losing in order to gain the one I was actually created for. Only grace by faith can help me keep those lines in the right place.

I am just a mom, but I am the mom who is going to teach my three about fear, so that makes me, and all of us just moms, pretty damn important. My kids are either going to learn to be afraid of everyone and everything- of entire people groups, of turbans and accents and different shades of skin- or they are going to learn that we are all sinners in need of a savior, and that we are only to be afraid of what can kill the soul, not the body. I’m determined to teach them the latter, for one simple reason: that is what Jesus taught us. 

So today, this mama chooses faith, and actually counts my life as nothing compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus. Because I want the life I have been given to matter. I want to do what I see Jesus commanding us to do.

I am just a mom, but I think I have the most important job in the world right now.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:15-17

By him. Through him. For him.

Six words that are becoming a lifeline to my anxious, wandering heart these days.

Right in front of me, I see so much that makes me want to run. I see a stack of insurance paperwork that has officially overgrown the paperclip. I see a scatterplot data sheet where I track every single SIB (self-injurious behavior) my sweet boy resorts to out of frustration so that we can nail down antecedents and coping mechanisms.

I see a handful of dear friends absolutely distraught at the outcome of our democratic process and another handful hesitantly relieved. I see our communities existing on far ends of a spectrum that no man-made bridge can bring together, and I see fingers pointing at one another across the aisles of our churches, not just our political leanings. But I see many people somewhere in the middle, knowing that from the day we demanded a king* our fate was sealed: a sinner would always be our political leader, no matter the banner they carried in to that position.

But it’s a mess, so much of it. Life can be a mess. Autism is brutal and politicians operate and execute on half-truths, at best. And I have to be honest, some days my mind runs anxiously away with the headlines: the ones in my own home and the ones we are screaming at one another.

But by him. Through him. For him.

All things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— by him, through him, and for him.

It’s a truth that stands forever. But dang, it does beg some hard questions from us. When I look at my Cannon, I don’t get the luxury of basking in God’s goodness because circumstances are good. No. Autism is so, so hard. Instead, we have to confront questions like this: is it really possible that something like autism could exist for God’s purposes? Would a loving God really allow a child to have a handicap that he will carry with him through adulthood, or is this just a flaw in the system?

And as followers of Jesus, we don’t get the luxury of looking around the world and at our own nation and putting hashtag blessed on every picture of the flag. No. People are hurting and scared and imagining a future in this very country they believe their own children are not welcome in. Instead we have to ask if we truly believe that God knew before he divided darkness and light who would be the head of the free world all these millennia later. Would He allow corruption and power hungry men and women in places of great decision-making power? Would he allow a nation to fall? Would he sustain a nation through turmoil and blame shifting? Was the election of 2016 just a mistake while God was looking away?

By him, through him, for him.

There is no flaw in God’s system. And the only time in all of history he ever looked away was when the sin of the world landed on his precious son; a pain so great for a Father who so perfectly loved his son that even He had to turn his face away**.

So how do we make sense of all the mess?

We remember by him, through him, for him.

We go back to the truth that God’s purpose is not to bless us. That’s not popular, but it’s true. God’s purpose is his glory. His glory is our good. Our good is being made more like Jesus through the sanctifying work that is raising a child with special needs or loving a neighbor who makes us crazy or actually praying for a leader who arouses nothing but animosity in our hearts.

The hard part is not looking around at the messes we all live in and being angry; the hard part is being hopeful, in having an absolute expectation of coming good; it’s loving and listening well and showing up and standing on God’s word because it is the truest thing about who we are and what we are even doing here. The hard part is being so undone with gratitude that the world wonders how we could be so joyful when something so big invades our lives. Jesus holds all things together, even the things that look broken by autism and irrevocably damaged by leadership. If our hope was only here, of course those things would shake us. But if our hope is truly in God’s kingdom, we are not shaken because He is never shaken.

God will get the glory for every big and little story of history, even this inch of it that we occupy. We can be sure that even when we don’t understand, all things are headed toward a glorious end.

By him, through him, for him.

Six words. Such amazing grace captured in just six words.

*1 Samuel 8:1-22

**Matthew 27:46